Not Understood and Other Poems/Dunedin from the Bay

by Thomas Bracken

 

DUNEDIN FROM THE BAY.

 

GO, trav’ler, unto others boast
  Of Venice and of Rome ;
Of saintly Mark’s majestic pile,
  And Peter’s lofty dome;
Of Naples and her trellished bowers;
  Of Rhineland far away;—
These may be grand, but give to me
  Dunedin from the Bay.

A lovely maiden seated in
  A grotto by the shore;
With richest crown of purest green
  That virgin ever wore;
Her snowy breast bedecked with flowers
  And clustering ferns so gay,—
Go, picture this, and then you have
  Dunedin from the Bay.

A fairy, round whose brilliant throne
  Great towering giants stand,
As if impatient to obey
  The dictates of her wand;
Their helmets hidden in the clouds,
  Their sandals in the spray—
Go picture this, and then you have
  Dunedin from the Bay.

A priestess of the olden time
  (Ere purer rights had birth)
On Nature’s altar offering up
  The homage of the earth;
Surrounded by grim Druids robed
  In mantles green and grey—
Go, picture this, and then you have
Dunedin from the Bay.

O never till this breast grows cold
  Can I forget that hour,
As, standing on the vessel’s deck
  I watched the golden shower
Of yellow beams, that darted
  From the sinking king of day,
  And bathed in a mellow flood
  Dunedin from the Bay.

 

 

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